Observations on Factors Affecting Performance of MapReduce based Apriori on Hadoop Cluster

Designing fast and scalable algorithm for mining frequent itemsets is always being a most eminent and promising problem of data mining. Apriori is one of the most broadly used and popular algorithm of frequent itemset mining. Designing efficient algorithms on MapReduce framework to process and analyze big datasets is contemporary research nowadays. In this paper, we have focused on the performance of MapReduce based Apriori on homogeneous as well as on heterogeneous Hadoop cluster. We have investigated a number of factors that significantly affects the execution time of MapReduce based Apriori running on homogeneous and heterogeneous Hadoop Cluster. Factors are specific to both algorithmic and non-algorithmic improvements. Considered factors specific to algorithmic improvements are filtered transactions and data structures. Experimental results show that how an appropriate data structure and filtered transactions technique drastically reduce the execution time. The non-algorithmic factors include speculative execution, nodes with poor performance, data locality & distribution of data blocks, and parallelism control with input split size. We have applied strategies against these factors and fine tuned the relevant parameters in our particular application. Experimental results show that if cluster specific parameters are taken care of then there is a significant reduction in execution time. Also we have discussed the issues regarding MapReduce implementation of Apriori which may significantly influence the performance.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, International Conference on Computing, Communication and Automation (ICCCA2016

Probing the indefinite CP nature of the Higgs Boson through decay distributions in the process e+e−→ttˉΦe^+e^-\to t\bar{t}\Phi

The recently discovered scalar resonance at the LHC is now almost confirmed to be a Higgs Boson, whose CP properties are yet to be established. At the ILC with and without polarized beams, it may be possible to probe these properties at high precision. In this work, we study the possibility of probing departures from the pure CP-even case, by using the decay distributions in the process $e^+ e^- \to t \bar{t} \Phi$, with $\Phi$ mainly decaying into a $b\bar b$ pair. We have compared the case of a minimal extension of the SM case (Model I) with an additional pseudoscalar degree of freedom, with a more realistic case namely the CP-violating Two-Higgs Doublet Model (Model II) that permits a more general description of the couplings. We have considered the ILC with $\sqrt{s}=800$\,GeV and integrated luminosity of $300\, {\rm fb}^{-1}$. Our main findings are that even in the case of small departures from the CP-even case, the decay distributions are sensitive to the presence of a CP-odd component in Model II, while it is difficult to probe these departures in Model I unless the pseudoscalar component is very large. Noting that the proposed degrees of beam polarization increases the statistics, the process demonstrates the effective role of beam polarization in studies beyond the Standard Model. Further, our study shows that an indefinite CP Higgs would be a sensitive laboratory to physics beyond the SM.Comment: 14 pages using revtex, 10 figures, corresponds to version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D.; compared to v1, discussion extended, figure added, table added, section reorganize

An approach to hygiene education among rural Indian school going children

Objectives: To find out the prevalence of intestinal parasites and its epidemiological correlates among rural Indian school going (6-14 years) children and to study the effect of focused, need based child to child hygiene education on personal hygiene of school children. Materials and Methods: In September 2007, the present participatory action research was undertaken at a feasibly selected village Dhotra (Kasar) in Wardha district of central India. A triangulated research design of quantitative (survey) and qualitative (transect walk & pile sorting) methods was used for the needs assessment before initiating formal hygiene education. Out of enlisted 172 children, data of 118 children with complete information was used for final analysis. The quantitative and qualitative data was entered and analyzed using the Epi Info 6.04 software and Anthropac 4.98.1/X software package respectively. School based participatory life skills based child to child hygiene education was undertaken for message dissemination and behavior change. The effect of this hygiene education on identified key behaviors was assessed after one month Results: Out of the 118 (50 male and 68 female) subjects examined 21 (17.8%, 95%CI, 11.4 – 25.9%) had intestinal parasite infection. The prevalence of intestinal parasitic infection was significantly high among children having dirty untrimmed nails (47.4%, 95%CI, 30.9 – 64.1%) followed by those having poor hand washing practices (37.2%, 95%CI, 22.9 – 53.2%). One month after hygiene education, the proportion of children having practice of hand washing with soap after defecation significantly improved from 63.6 % to 78%. The proportion of clean and cut nails also improved from 67.8% to 80 % (p<0.05). Conclusions: The need based, focused, life skills based child to child hygiene education was effective for behavior change. An integrated approach of drug treatment and focused participatory hygiene education is required to control parasite load among rural Indian school going children